


Dreams

by scarredsodeep



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, Early Destiel, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition, Lazarus Rising, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 09:21:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7612573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarredsodeep/pseuds/scarredsodeep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something about going to hell makes it hard to sleep at night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Here is a super short Supernatural fic that has been kicking around on my fanfiction.net since 2012. I hope there's someone out there who will still enjoy it!

                Dean closed his eyes against the darkness and fitted his right hand carefully over the scar. The handprint burned into him felt warm to the touch, even after all this time. It was the only part of him that didn’t feel cold. He squeezed gently, cautiously. The pressure was reassuring, somehow—comforting. It wasn’t enough to keep the nightmares away, but sometimes it helped him fall asleep. He laid his head against the pillow and let himself believe it wasn’t his own hand.

 

“What are you doing?”

Dean started awake at the sound of the voice, not sure if he’d slept, if he was sleeping still. His first thought was of Sam, and panic. Had he been screaming again? He couldn’t keep explaining that away. Sam was too smart, too suspicious. He suspected already that Dean’s amnesia for his time in hell wasn’t as total as he claimed. Sam couldn’t find out.

But it wasn’t Sam’s voice. “Dean? What are you doing with your hand?”

It was Cas.

Dean scrabbled into a sitting position, dropping his scar like it had seared him anew. Castiel sat at the foot of the bed, in the shadows. “Can’t a guy hug himself to sleep at night?” Dean asked, struggling to sound light-hearted and cavalier, to adopt the personality he’d been using as a shield ever since he came back, empty and haunted and cold. Death was out there, waiting. _Hell_ was waiting. He couldn’t think about it. He’d go mad if he did. Sleeping, waking—he’d never stop screaming.

He glanced surreptitiously at Sam’s bed. His brother was a dark, still lump under the comforter. The sound of his breathing, even, filled the otherwise silent room.

Dean felt Castiel’s eyes on him, brow creased and gaze serious. Always serious. He steeled himself and looked back at the angel, trying not to let anything show. It wasn’t fair for him to show up here, now, like this, in the dead of night when Dean was most vulnerable.

“What are you doing here?” Dean asked gruffly, dropping one mask to pick up another. This was the tough, fearless, devil-may-care version of himself. It hadn’t always been such a brazen lie.

Cas’s worried brow creased deeper. It looked like confusion. The angel reached out towards him and Dean realized this was a dream. It had to be. But this was a new kind of nightmare.

Breath involuntarily escaped Dean’s lips in a hiss as Cas’s fingers brushed the shiny raised ridges of the scar, of his handprint. “Does it pain you?” Cas asked quietly, worriedly. Dean reminded himself it was only a dream and shook his head wordlessly, tears burning at his eyes. _The opposite of that._

A questioning look on his face—almost as if he was asking permission—Cas laid his hand slowly, with a softness almost (no, definitely) preternatural, over the mark. Unlike Dean’s larger hand, it fit perfectly.

_It’s just a dream_ , Dean told himself. _It’s a dream. You can have this._

He let the last of the mask crumble away, let the terror and agony of hell show through. Let himself be scared, let himself be weak, just for a moment, just in a dream. He put his hand over Cas’s, the warm flesh feeling so blessedly solid, so utterly real, under his touch. He looked into the angel’s troubled eyes, as real and bare as he had ever been, and whispered, “Hold me. Please. Just for a little while.”

Cas’s perennially knotted brow smoothed, relaxing. For the first time the angel looked at peace. He brushed a finger over Dean’s jaw for the barest moment and laid down on the garish motel bedspread. Dean laid down beside him and allowed Cas to pull him into his chest, fitting shoulder to collar bone, stomach to back. Cas wrapped his hand once more around Dean’s upper arm, finding his handprint.

Dean closed his eyes, feeling safe, feeling warm, feeling Cas against his back. Feeling whole. The fear wasn’t gone but it was different, now—more distant. It didn’t seem anymore like a burden he had to bear alone. Hell felt that much further away, that much less certain.

Dean fell asleep feeling wings around him, and didn’t dream.


End file.
